Hurricanes pack convincing punch
Global warming might be valid, some Republicans admit
WILMINGTON, N.C. — It took a giant laurel oak puncturing her roof during Hurricane Florence last month for Margie White to consider that perhaps there was some truth to all the alarm bells about global warming.
“I always thought climate change was a bunch of nonsense, but now I really do think it is happening,” said White, a 65-year-old supporter of President Donald Trump, as she and her young grandson watched workers haul away downed trees and other debris lining the streets of her posh seaside neighborhood last week, just as Hurricane Michael made landfall 700 miles away in the Florida Panhandle.
Storms have grown more frequent — and more intense — during the 26 years she and her husband have lived in Wilmington, White said, each one chipping away at their skepticism. Climate change even has seeped into their morning conversations as they sip coffee — ever since the neighbor’s tree came crashing onto their home and property, coming to rest along nearly the entire length of their driveway.
While Trump continued this month to deny the effects of climate change in the face of overwhelming scientific agreement that it is occurring — most recently noted in a landmark United Nations report that he has dismissed — a discernible shift appears to be occurring among Republican voters in North Carolina, a state pummeled by two hurricanes in two years.
The impact, say residents of this conservative congressional district, lies right before their eyes, prompting conversations among farmers, fishermen and others on how climate change has hurt the local economy and environment.
Downtown streets and parking lots along the Cape Fear River, like those surrounding tourist attractions such as the battleship USS North Carolina, flood regularly, including last week as the remnants of Michael blew through town. Flooding during Hurricane Florence cut off Wilmington from the rest of the state for days. Lagoons full of hog manure on industrial farms northwest of the city overflowed, contaminating water sources and killing fish. Toxic coal ash, too, was released into the river.
Separately, fishermen have noticed in recent years that black sea bass are migrating north because of warming ocean temperatures. Other watermen say they’re finding more saltwater fish such as flounder upriver as the sea level rises.
“I’m not a scientist. I just know what I see,” said Carl Marshburn, a Republican who has operated tour boats along the Cape Fear River for three decades. He said he’s had to start coating the bottom of his river boats with antifouling paint to prevent barnacles and other marine organisms from growing amid saltwater intrusion.
No longer is the topic taboo among many conservative business owners, homeowners and voters here in New Hanover County, a swing county in a swing state, both of which Trump won by four points in 2016.
Politicians have adopted a GOP-friendly term to discuss climate change, referring to sea level rise as “recurrent flooding,” said Rob Zapple, a Democrat in a competitive race to hang onto his New Hanover County commissioner seat.
“They can see and feel and understand the effects,” he said. “All of a sudden, we were allowed to have a conversation with our Re- publican counterparts.”
Although it’s unlikely to immediately change voting behavior, the shift is reflected in recent polling.
An Elon University survey taken in early October, after Hurricane Florence hit, showed that 37 percent of Republicans believe global warming is “very likely” to negatively impact North Carolina coastal communities in the next 50 years. That is nearly triple the percentage of Republicans — 13 percent — who felt that way in 2017.
The percentage of Republicans who felt climate change is “not at all likely” to harm the state’s coastal communities dropped by 10 points during the last year — from 41 percent in 2017 to 31 percent now.
“That suggests to me that there’s a very large minority within the Republican Party who are at least open to the first steps to accepting that climate change is a possibility,” said Jason Husser, a political science professor who directs the Elon poll. “It signals some sort of tipping point.”
Moreover, nearly half of Republicans surveyed said that incorporating findings from climate change scientists into local government planning is a good idea and three-quarters said real estate development should be restricted along floodprone areas.
Husser acknowledged that some of the shift in opinion could have resulted from the context in which voters were interviewed, with the latest poll asking respondents about climate change after having questioned them about their experiences during Hurricane Florence.
Nationally, a wide partisan chasm remains, with only 11 percent of Republicans describing climate change as a “very big” problem compared with 72 percent of Democrats, according to a new poll released this week by the Pew Research Center.
Plenty of residents in North Carolina’s southeastern corner still reject the science, attributing changing weather patterns to God and the cycle of nature. A group of college students fishing off a pier on the barrier island of Wrightsville Beach last week called climate change a “load of crap.” A surfer taking advantage of Hurricane Michael’s turbulent waves dismissed it as “propaganda.” A sunburned construction worker said it’s not worth worrying about because “God takes care of it.”
Many other GOP politicians, too, remain wary of bringing up climate change as a campaign issue. All 12 Republicans representing North Carolina in Congress, including Rep. David Rouzer, whose district includes Wilmington, have expressed doubts about global warming or its causes.
Maverick Doane, cofounder and president of the Republican student club at Cape Fear Community College, had interned for Rouzer and plans to vote for him in November. But he’d like to see Rouzer and other Republican politicians acknowledge that climate change is real.
“Basically, I find it quite ludicrous that people just ignore the facts,” the 18year-old said. “I would like to see some initiative in at least addressing it.”
In Wrightsville Beach, where mattresses, drywall and trash bags were piled in front of waterfront homes still under repair, Jon Taylor, a 55-year-old sunscreen salesman and self- described “Trump fan,” lamented the environmental impact of the last hurricane. He recounted seeing raw sewage seeping into the ocean and turning it into “chocolate milk.”
As someone who has spent his life on the water, he said, he knows instinctively that the ocean temperature is rising each year.